Wildcard end Virtus.pro’s Shanghai Major

Jame and electroNic’s first Major together ends in humiliation.

Virtus.pro have been eliminated from the Shanghai Major after a humbling defeat at the hands of Wildcard.

Only a 13-4 win over Rare Atom showed any sign that VP would make a dent in China, at an event they hoped might resurrect what has been a disastrous season since Overpass was removed and Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov arrived for big money from Cloud9.

Roster changes seem inevitable, a prospect Dzhami “⁠Jame⁠” Ali admitted was likely as far back as October: “No one on this team is safe,” he told HLTV. “Virtus.pro’s ambition is to be the best and compete with the strongest teams at the highest level.”

“After the Major, just like any other team, we will reevaluate because we have a lot of disputes in our system.”

Those disputes, after electroNic’s arrival sparked a clash of styles and reduced performance from fellow aggressive rifler Evgenii “⁠FL1T⁠” Lebedev, will only increase after a below-par Major where elimination came at the hands of Peter “⁠stanislaw⁠” Jarguz’s inexperienced Wildcard squad.

The series started well for VP, with David “⁠n0rb3r7⁠” Danielyan getting a triple kill in each half to ensure their map pick went their way.

But once we switched to Wildcard home map Inferno, the Russian squad never truly looked like winning. Only a Petr “⁠fame⁠” Bolyshev 1v3 retaking A from Library sparked some life into the match, but it was still not enough.

Anubis began with Virtus.pro down 1-6, and although a comeback was launched it was swatted out of the air by back-to-back stanislaw double entries onto A: The first from Main, and the second a late sneak from Middle.

Wildcard’s captain then put the game beyond reach by denying n0rb3r7 in a key 1v1 to put his side one best-of-three away from the Elimination stage.

electroNic had a particularly tough time in Mid, ending the all-important first half 3-7 and the series 28-46. Right next to him at the bottom of the scoreboard was Jame on just 51 ADR over the three maps.

Given the pair’s struggle for control over the team’s system that has so upset VP’s balance in 2024, it was a fitting way for the squad’s year to end.